Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 21

There is no real reason to talk about what a terrible person Richard Nixon was. You already know this. I will say the phrase of his grave may be true but has absolutely nothing to do with the life of Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon is buried at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda, California. As I have stated before, the museum there is the greatest place on Earth if you are a cynical left-wing historian who likes to crack jokes at the expense of dead and living conservatives. What’s more, we had to leave early because a wedding was about to begin. The bride and groom were to be standing about 10 feet away from Nixon’s grave. I know we’ve all wanted to play a little Dick and Pat on our wedding night, but this was a bit much.

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please tell us the couple was going to be facing the ocean or something *other* than Nixon’s tombstone. that would be deranged

rea

Here in Grand Rapids we have the Gerald Ford Museum/Library, with Ford and his wife buried on the grounds. The grounds, along the Grand River across from downtown, are very nice, and many events are held there that have nothing to do with Gerald Ford. I’ve gone to the Gay Pride Festival there, for example.

I would not necessarily assume that anyone getting married at the Nixon Library is seeing the grounds as anything other than an attractive public park.

Linnaeus

Here in Grand Rapids we have the Gerald Ford Museum/Library,

Not to be confused with the Ford Presidential Library, which is in Ann Arbor.

jim, some guy in iowa

well I hope so. I had the bad mental image of the happy couple turning to face the crowd after the vows are taken, and doing Nixon’s “V for Victory” wave

… which would, I guess, be preferable to them re-enacting the photo Esquire used to use for their Dubious Achievement Award issue…

TribalistMeathead

Here in Grand Rapids we have the Gerald Ford Museum

Which you can reach by flying to Gerald Ford Airport and taking the Gerald Ford Freeway to the site.

witlesschum

You’ll have to pardon them for being proud of him.

Ahuitzotl

idk, theres some reason to be proud .. 2nd best Republican President since 1933 ?

Linnaeus

I know we’ve all wanted to play a little Dick and Pat on our wedding night

“Thank you, everyone, I’ll be here all week.”

Ahuitzotl

handy for targetting the drone

Sly

What’s more, we had to leave early because a wedding was about to begin. The bride and groom were to be standing about 10 feet away from Nixon’s grave. I know we’ve all wanted to play a little Dick and Pat on our wedding night, but this was a bit much.

“I really hope that was one of those ‘ironic’ hipster weddings.” He thought for the first time ever.

The Temporary Name

You might wanna ensmallen that pic Erik.

I can’t think you’d wanna get married near that grave though. The smell of fresh piss must be overpowering.

That couple will be divorced and remarried to other people by the time that picture loads.

David Hunt

The smell of fresh piss must be overpowering.

My first thought on why Nixon put his grave on the grounds there was that he wanted to control access to prevent it from being violated.

Snarki, child of Loki

Do we know with certainty that Nixon is buried there?

I fully expect Cheney to be buried in ‘an undisclosed location’, and just hope that it happens promptly and unceremoniously.

Brad Nailer

Buried at sea in a man-sized safe.

No Longer Middle Aged Man

Hopefully a crossroads with a stake through his heart.

Karen24

I really wanted to ask Professor Looms if there was an acrylic screen between the sidewalk and the actual grave to preven people from peeing on the tombstone. This is one of a small number of public places where the caretakers have to seriously consider such things.

djanyreason

From Loomis’ November 2014 post on the Nixon museum (linked to above in this post):

After seeing this, as well as the bed where Nixon was birthed (look at this cute little baby!) we were on the way out when we realized that a wedding was about to begin. Yes, someone had rented out the Nixon Library for their wedding. Where the couple was going to take their vows was about 20 feet from Nixon’s grave. Now, I think we’ve all wanted to play a little Dick and Pat on our wedding night, but this was a bit ridiculous. This was the least romantic spot for a wedding ever. Although I hope I am invited to an irony-themed wedding there in the future.

(emphasis added)

Get some new material, man!

jim, some guy in iowa

ah, you can’t expect a good standup to not use the same material. what I find interesting is the nuptials are now taking place ten feet closer to Nixon’s grave. Next time the story’s told they’ll be standing on the marker

Bart: You’re right, Mom. I shouldn’t let this bother me. I’m in television now. It’s my job to be repetitive. My job. My job. Repetitiveness is my job. I am going to go out there tonight and give the _best_ performance of my life.

Marge: The _best_ performance of your life?

Bart: The _best_ performance of my life!

joe from Lowell

Perhaps it’s just an optical illusion, but the grave seems to feature steep angles in the stone and landscaping, as if to discourage dancing.

Chomsky is interesting in that he started to become a crank about a decade and a half ago (perhaps even slightly earlier than that) but appears to have, unlike the vast majority of public intellectuals, come back from crank-land. I believe he did endorse voting for Obama both times as the lesser evil. There are far better examples of purity troll leftists than Chomsky.

joe from Lowell

Chomsky is interesting in that he started to become a crank about a decade and a half ago (perhaps even slightly earlier than that) but appears to have, unlike the vast majority of public intellectuals, come back from crank-land.

And who else can you say that about? Henry Wallace maybe?

CrunchyFrog

I know conservatives who planned vacations to southern California for the sole reason of visiting the Reagan and Nixon presidential libraries. They went to other places as long as they were there, but that was their pilgrimage. People is weird.

TribalistMeathead

One reason I finally agreed to tag along with my wife on one of her trips to rural AR to visit her best friend from college and her family was so that I could visit the Clinton Library while we were in Little Rock.

I lasted until the section touting welfare reform and then left, btw.

Ahuitzotl

Hey, we made a trip to Little Rock specifically to see the Clinton Library. Of course, we were existing* in West Little Rock at the time, so it wasnt too arduous.
.
.
*living would be too strong a word, given that it’s Arkansas.

N__B

Yorba Linda gets less than 14″ of rain per year. One might say that Nixon made a place in the desert and called it peacemaker.

cthulhu

It wouldn’t have been in Yorba Linda had Nixon’s Library-related cover-up worked out. He wanted ocean view property in San Clemente which was, unfortunately, for him and his minions, military land. They set up a sham organization to get the land transferred to the locals for a “park.” But the scheme fell apart and the Library people eventually had to settle on far less impressive YL.

Her Nixon biography was her last book, and she eventually got too ill to finish it, so it ends before his presidency. Also, as was typical of her later career, it’s stuffed with fairly questionable psychoanalysis.

To me, Brodie’s books were released in almost exact descending order of quality. No Man Knows My History is incredible, one of my favorite books. Her Thaddeus Stevens and Richard Burton bios are great reads as well. Jefferson is interesting but dated (although it did popularize the Hemings theory) and tendentious. And Nixon is half-complete.

BiloSagdiyev

+1 for No Man Knows My History. A detailed dig into the whole story of Joseph Smith, megalomaniac and grifter. No man should ever have so much power in this… oh, hello, Mr. Trump!

And she grew up Mormon, so grappling with all of that reality wasn’t easy for her, IIRC.

BiloSagdiyev

” Her Nixon biography was her last book, and she eventually got too ill to finish it, so it ends before his presidency. Also, as was typical of her later career, it’s stuffed with fairly questionable psychoanalysis.”

Also, I feel compelled to point out that when it comes to RMN, the pysch issue is mandatory. The man had more issues than Foreign Policy. As to how well it gets done,well, I guess there are other authors who have done it better than her? I’ve never sat down and read a bio of him, and I don’t know if I could take it.

I will say the phrase of his grave may be true but has absolutely nothing to do with the life of Richard Nixon.

Trump will have “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” written on his grave.

Snarki, child of Loki

Trump will have “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” written on his grave.

In YOOOGE gold letters, it’ll be classy

Hogan

Oh, it’s the meek! Blessed are the meek! Oh, that’s nice, isn’t it? I’m glad they’re getting something, ’cause they have a hell of a time.

Joe Bob the III

The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.

But Nixon had a plan for ending the war in Vietnam! As long as you don’t count the five or so years he prolonged the war, Nixon ended the war in Vietnam.

Davis X. Machina

To be fair, he was developing the capability to carry out a program of peace-related activities, is all.

That takes time …

BiloSagdiyev

An even bigger secret than his secret plan (to end the war after being re-elected in ’72, but hopefully by just winning somehow) was his concludinng in 1967 or so that it was a big waste of time and that we needed to get out, and not telling anybody that, and oh yeah, using back channels to scuttle peace talks lest peace break out before he could use it to run for president successfully on. What a charmer.

bad Jim

Nixon looks out upon the snow covering the White House lawn and sees “Nixon is a fink” written there. He has the FBI investigate; the agent doesn’t know quite how to report the results. “The urine is Kissinger’s, but the handwriting is Pat’s.”

BiloSagdiyev

AROOOOOOO!!!!

BiloSagdiyev

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon’s funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

– Hunter S. Thompson

BiloSagdiyev

Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people anyway. For years I’ve regarded his existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; I couldn’t imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn’t quite reach the lever on the voting machine.

– Hunter S. Thompson

(And there are more, but I’ll stop now.)

creature

My mother would yell at me for saying terrible (terrible!) things about Tricky Dick. I kept telling her ‘he’s a crooked goddam California Republican, mom!’. By the time Ronnie Raygunz got tapped for the role of President of the Unites States, she had seen the light. ‘Goddam Reagan!’ She would mutter, trying to not hear what she was actually saying. I must’ve had an influence.

A good friend of mine’s father had been an ambassador to several countries, he was a pretty progressive guy, a real asset to the Foreign Service. I gave him a copy of HST’s ‘Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72’, for a retirement present. Some time later I asked him if he had read the book. ‘Oh, yes! Such language- it was shocking!’ ‘But was it accurate, Bob, about the electoral process and the circus that it is depicted as?’ ‘Well, yes, it was spot-on! But the language, just shocking!’